Reduced Work Week and Compressed Work Week are a (relatively) new concept that some Annualised Hours Contract workplaces are doing
Reduced: You work 4 days of 7.5 hours, adding up to 30 hours weekly, you get paid the same as if you worked 5 days of 7.5 hours (37.5 hours)
Compressed: You work 4 days of 9.5 hours, adding up to 37.5 hours weekly, you get paid the same as if you worked 5 days of 7.5 hours (37.5 hours)
Lunch having to be paid is not an EU rule. It just happens to be that multiple countries in the EU have such rulings.
In the Netherlands lunch can still be unpaid unless your union has agreed otherwise in the collective labour agreement.
My job has unpaid lunch according to the employment contract (But thankfully they aren’t too picky about working exactly 8 hours in a day)
Huh, guess another case of “so common you assume it’s the law”